Crazy secret hideout thing in Hillsbrad that I didn’t know existed? Check.

Traps set for you on the way there? Check.

Hot blood elf guys?

Check.

Tearing up battlegrounds at 29? Check. Not as much as I was at 19, but still.

This rogue thing is wicked fun. Just sayin’.

My DoTs crit.

My DoTs crit.

My DoTs crit.

My DoTs crit.

My rogue was about halfway through level 18 this morning, so I decided to do some Warsong Gulch. The first game was kind of a failure; we lost pretty badly. I was sort of preparing for this to be one of “those mornings” where it was just a string of losses and crying.

But then something interesting happened.

We started communicating.

See, there was a pretty solid group of about six or seven of us who kept re-queue’ing over and over. We didn’t always get into the same games, of course, but we’d always be there with at least a few buddies from the previous game or two games ago or whatever. A couple of us were pretty twinked out but there were a lot of your average lowbies in our little re-queue’ing group as well.

Anyways, pretty soon we’d figured out what everyone’s strengths and weaknesses were, and we were making and executing plans. We knew who our best flag-runners were, who was best on defense, and who made the best distractions. There was no QQ, no whining, no crying if somebody messed up. Just a lot of “gj”‘s when we made yet another flag capture.

Game after game we just dominated. 3-0, 3-0, 3-0. Anytime we queued up and saw a friend we could rely on from a previous game we would say hi and /cheer at each other. Even the people from the Super Hardcore PvP Servers were /cheering and /waving. And every game our motley little group just smashed the Horde. It was, quite honestly, the best PvP I have participated in in a very, very long time.

But all good things come to an end, and pretty soon came that fateful game where I announced at the beginning that it would be my last: I was gonna level out of the bracket. The response was a few “Noooo”s in BG chat which made me feel kinda warm and fuzzy.

Perhaps fittingly, this was our hardest game of the morning: the Horde had some pretty geared folks on their end this time, including a rogue who was basically equal to me in gear and who I locked one-on-one horns with several times. But we managed to eke out a victory in the end– with a flag I captured.

Thanks, BG9, for making WSG surprisingly awesome again for one morning. I hope to see you all in Arathi Basin! <3

I get a lot of spam comments. A lot of it. I clear out probably five or so spam comments a day on both of my blogs combined– and that’s not counting the several thousands that Akismet has caught in its spider-web.

Yeah.

Most of the spam tries to cleverly disguise itself as not-spam, which is how it gets through the filters. But it’s still not something I want to deal with every day.

As a result I have decided to auto-close commenting on all posts older than 14 days. I hate to do this, because I know some people have a lot of blogs to catch up on and don’t get around to individual posts for a while, but it will help tons with the spam situation (as 90% of it happens on old posts).

You are, of course, always welcome to contact me via e-mail, Twitter, or by commenting on more recent posts, though!

I always loved hunters but it was a bit of a bizarre relationship. I loved them for what they were, obviously, but I also loved them because I was afraid to try anything new. Because anytime I tried anything new, I was expecting a carbon copy of a hunter, and when this never turned out to be the case, I would quit said new character in frustration. I was, for lack of a better term, caught in a bad romance.

After several months of hiatus things are different. I no longer feel like I have to keep writing hunter guides. I mean, tons of you guys followed me over to my new blog to hear me talk about things like aquarium test strips. Seriously.

I can feel the excitement.

I have also Officially Quit Raiding. I don’t have the time or the previously discussed mental stamina. My guild keeps trying to talk me into letting them drag me to an Arthas fight so I can see it, but I’m pretty apathetic about the whole issue. If I see him, fine, if not, fine. Ya know?

So my beloved hunter has been relegated to the status of BadgeBot. I run random LFGs with her when I’m feeling up to it. I spend the badges on those BoA heirlooms and Primordial Saronite. That’s right, I’m in Ulduar tier stuff and spending badges on stuff that isn’t better gear. Savvy?

Instead of raiding and endgame, I’m dinking around in alts which are tons more fun. When I started WoW again I made a pact to myself that I was going to be The Very Model of a Modern Major Casual, and I’m happy with how it’s turned out. I’ll spend a half hour or so in game every day, doing things that are familiar (starter areas/old instances anyone?) but also different. For example, after avoiding melee like the plague for years, I have a Feral Druid. And a rogue. My word, I love my rogue. And her vanity guild.

...gaga ooh la la?

Stuff dies before I can use Eviscerate. It’s hilarious. Also I’m a gnome, and an engineer, which means that as soon as I go into WSG I am going to become the embodiment of everything that Every Horde PvPer hates. It will be glorious.

I also really like her name. Tourbillon. This is a tourbillon:

It’s POWERED BY PHYSICS! Fully mechanical; and it goes on a watch, which means it’s about the size of what, your thumbnail?

Perfect name for a gnome rogue engineer, no? <3

I’ve also started making alts on the servers of friends and fellow bloggers. I used to avoid doing that because I was really bad about logging on to them and then I’d feel horrible about making an alt somewhere and never playing it. I’m trying to be better this time, though.

I’m Pike, and I endorse this Pointless Post.

I haven’t raided since February. But I’ve done some heroics and testing/spreadsheeting.

Best Pet?: Elitist Jerks says Raptors (yay!) at very high gear levels. Wolves & Devilsaurs are testing out to be slightly higher for me in my ToC duds. By “slightly higher” I mean “about 20 DPS fully raid buffed”, whether or not that’s worth it for you is up to you.

Shot Rotation? Again, going by very high gear levels, Elitist Jerks says you can drop Arcane Shot. Spreadsheet tells me I can’t yet. Praise the light, I hate dropping shots, it makes me bored out of my mind.

Spec? I am still 53/11/7. I tried playing around with dropping Survival Instincts in favor of more points in Mortal Shots but the difference is minuscule (less than 10 DPS, fully raidbuffed). It might be worth a shot if you are better geared, however.

Is BM “viable” yet? Ah yes, that word with the nebulous definitions that people love to toss around. Ultimately this one comes down to you, what you are doing, and what your personal standards/opinions are, but I can tell you two things for sure:

One, Elitist Jerks says that at high gear levels the difference between BM and SV is now very minimal. Both lag noticeably behind MM, however.

Two, if I can pull this off on a single-target boss fight in a heroic as BM in oldschool ToC gear & freaking blue ammo:

…then anyone who makes fun of you for being BM in a heroic is, quite honestly, out of their looney little mind. And yes, you can tell them I said so.

…comes from some other beginning’s end. ( – Seneca. Or Semisonic. Whichever…)

The account has expired, and I’m done with World of Warcraft for the foreseeable future. Having done everything I needed to do on my “mains” last night, I was actually in the process of going around and double-checking my lesser-played alts today for any rogue items in their mailboxes when I was kicked off of the server.

So wait, you’re coming back, right? When?

I’ve hesitated to say for certain one way or another because I don’t want to make any guarantees. At best I want to give myself a few months to get things sorted out. If needs be I’ll wait until Cataclysm and see how things are looking then. Let’s just give it the ol’ Blizzard “Soon“™

What about the blog?

As I said, I will keep blogging. Probably in more than one place, because apparently I’m an addict like that (or a masochist, take your pick.)

I’ve thought about it for a bit and although I initially figured I’d just keep blogging here, I think I’d rather leave Aspect of the Hare “as is”. That way, people who want to continue linking to me for guides and the like can do so without worrying about people having to wade through non-WoW stuff. Plus, if/when I come back, I can just jump right back in to a ready-to-go WoW-themed blog.

What I’m probably going to do is set up a couple of subdomains here and then when they’re all set I’ll make another post linking you all to them. Gimme a couple days and I’ll get back to you!

Also, if you have a LiveJournal account and want to read my somewhat less-structured and more non-sequitor rambles I don’t mind if you friend me over there, either.

Commissions?

Will continue, send ‘em my way! I’d like to think the fabled “Sitemeter Avatar Contest” will continue in some fashion also, though we’ll have to wait and see how things go once I get my “New Blog” all set up.

And now, roll credits:

Thank you…

…to BRK and Lassirra, without whom I would never have started blogging. Your blogs were inspirations that got me excited about the WoW-o-sphere and taught me how to play a hunter in the first place.

…to the WoW Twitterati for giving me one epic chatroom to rant, laugh, cry, and joke in, to bounce ideas off of, and inspire me to do crazy things like draw pictures or write books. I’ll still be around, don’t worry.

…to my guild, Order of the Rose, for being made of at least ten types of awesome. For dragging me around to their alt runs when I was an undergeared nub and then tossing me head first into their 25mans and hard modes, for passing gear and weapons to me, and for pulling together special raids just for me so I could get my Champion of the Frozen Wastes title– on not one, but two characters. For not just “letting” me raid as Beast Mastery, but for flat-out encouraging and challenging me to do so. Every outcast, non-flavor-of-the-month player should be so lucky.

…to my guild in Burning Crusade, the now-defunct but never-forgotten Entelechy. This is going to sound dorky and cheesy to the Nth Degree, but ya know what, I’m gonna say it anyway: you guys are some of the best friends I’ve ever had. I love that a good number of us have kept in touch outside of the game, via our forum or our nightly AIM chats, which is awesome because I know a lot of us have quit playing. I think back to the best memories I have of this game– Karazhan, countless Heroic Mech runs, opening all the graves in Zul’Farrak when we were all level 45, marching in on the Caelestis Templares’ cathedral twenty-strong– and I wasn’t doing it alone, but with you guys. May there always be Five Seconds to Evocate on Curator and may “Thundercats, Ho!” always ring through the hall before Shade of Aran.

…to Blizzard, for, well, making the game to begin with. I’ve been a BlizzHead since StarCraft stole my heart away in 1999, and it’s you guys and Nintendo more than anybody that have instilled a love of gaming in my soul. Being a citizen of Azeroth these past three years has been an honor and privilege. You guys are masters of making living, breathing worlds and characters. I was trying to emulate that solid real-ness when I was writing my book and inventing my own fictional world and characters, and if I was even half as successful as you with it, then I think I’m good. And if my book ever ends up published and with even a modicum of success then I’ll owe you a grateful hat tip.

…and finally, to my readers, for being the best readers that any blogger could ever hope for. It’s been almost three years of blogging and I can count the number of truly negative comments that I’ve received on one hand. And it’s because you guys are all amazing and mature and here to contribute to this little community. I have read every single comment ever posted here– every single one– and I wish I could go through and name names one by one and thank you all individually but it would take too long. Suffice to say if you have ever commented here I consider you a friend. Thank you for making me a part of your lives. I really didn’t deserve it.

If you’re going to follow me along to the rest of my blogging adventures, then I very much look forward to seeing you there. If not, it’s been a pleasure and I can only hope that something I said at some point made you smile or made you think. And I hope to see you again should I return.

—

Before I logged off of my characters last night, I tried to make sure I logged off appropriately. Tawbree, for example, is astride her new Epic Fiery Horse cause I did in fact manage to hit level 40. Tamaryn is in tree form, dancing away, with both trinkets activated and all of her HoTs ticking on herself.

And Tawyn pulled out Tux, her very first pet ever, and went on a little road trip. She went to Teldrassil, where it all began; she went to Azshara and explored the entire thing– including even more things I’d never seen before!– and then… then, she went home.

Bestial Wrath’d right before I logged out. That way she’ll be Bestial Wrath’d out there in Pixel-Land until I come back, and if I don’t come back, she’ll be Bestial Wrath’d until the servers go down.

I thought it was a nice touch.

–

Long past were the days when Medivh’s tower was much of a threat and adventurers flocked to the pass to donate their skills to the cause, but the few Violet Eye delegates that were holding out there did see the occasional visitor.

Archmage Alturus was on a first name basis with a few of these visitors, the night elf Tawyn being one of them.

“Back again, are you?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

“Ayep,” Tawyn replied tersely as she dismounted.

“What keeps drawing you here, really?” The Archmage was genuinely curious. “The time is past that we really needed you…”

Tawyn blinked. He may as well have asked her why fish swam and why birds flew. “Maybe it’s the ley lines under the place. I dunno. You don’t ask the gulls why they return to the sea.” She shrugged.

“Fair enough,” the mage replied. “And we could always use good scouts, I suppose. You never know if something new might pop up in there.”

“Good. I’m goin’ in.”

“Alone?”

“I’m never alone.”

It was then that Archmage Alturus saw the big gray owl with yellow eyes perched nearby in the shadows. As if in response, he took wing now and alighted on Tawyn’s shoulder as she opened the front gate. She stood there a moment, gazing inside, her eyes clouded a bit as if distracted. “We aren’t getting any younger I suppose, are we, Tux?” she murmured.

Tux hooted something in response and then the hunter and her owl went inside.

…is smaller than a tear.”

(Betcha didn’t know the guy from Blues Clues writes awesome music now.)

So the other day I was doing Warlock quests, because apparently ‘locks get about five-million class-specific quests, and I found this area in Desolace that I’d never seen before:

As you can imagine, I was quite shocked by this revelation. Places in the game that I hadn’t seen before, after three years of playing? AWESOME.

Then I remembered that I’ve never seen all of Bloodmyst Isle. Ever. I fail at leveling in the draenei starting area, and this was my main’s view of the map:

Yeah.

So I decided to go check it out.

…then I got distracted by curling, which is the Greatest Thing I Didn’t Know Existed Until The Winter Olympics.

…so I waited to go check it out until this morning instead. /cough

Wash and I went exploring and I took about a dozen screenshots. Here’s the best:

A world of mushrooms. How peculiar! It was like something out of Alice and Wonderland.

Oooo, shiny floaty crystals.

This gave me awesome Tempest Keep flashbacks and made me happy. But it was only the beginning…

…because THIS was absolutely massive, and surrounded by elites. I was impressed.

This one was filled with little voidwalkers and reminded me of that Oshu’gun place in Nagrand. <3

Look, Krizzlybear! I’ve found the homeland of the fabled Big Red Water Elementals!

I liked the way this little statue thing was shaped like a dragon.

Topped it all off with a lovely sunset. <3

I don’t think I managed to find every nook and cranny of the place, but I saw a lot of neat things, so I’m pretty satisfied.

I’ve been trying to get some raiding done before my account expires– gonna go out with a bang and all that!

10-man ICC is, I am very glad to say, not nearly as lag-erffic as the 25-man version. I did the first four bosses with Tawyn. I liked the Gunship Battle simply because it was airships and I like those (Pike’s Law: anything can always be made more awesome with airships), but the Saurfang battle directly afterwards made me even happier.

Cause I really wasn’t sure what to get and suddenly these adds came out and one was running toward me and without second thought I was Concussive Shot’ing, kiting, jump-shotting… oooh. It felt good. When was the last time we had to do that in a raid? Like… Gluth? (I hated kiting on Gluth by the way. Haaaaated. I always prodded the DKs into doing it.)

But yeah, it was awesome fun, and a great feeling.

Then yesterday I healed a 25man ToC with my Tree.

…apparently I’ve been using rank 13 Rejuvenation. For months. (15 is the max rank.)

I would like to thank the random PuG member with RankWatch for pointing this out. This explains a lot. *cries tree tears*

ToC got hilariously easy by the way, now that everyone pretty much overgears it. Aaaanyways.

I like healing. I’m gonna miss it. <3

Sooo I was chucked an invite to ICC25 today, for the first time ever. Originally I was asked to go healy on my druid, which sort of surprised me because my dear little Tree is still sporting at least two blues, but then we realized that we hardly had any hunters in the raid (for once) and I got to go on my hunter instead. (Five minutes after I logged onto my hunter, about three other hunters joined the raid group anyway, and we eventually wound up with a total of six. As opposed to two druids. Go figure.)

Now.

I’d like to sit here and tell you how awesome this raid was. I’d like to tell you that I was blown away by the fights and by the scenery and by the atmosphere. I’d like to give you all sorts of details on my thoughts on the fights from a huntery perspective. You know, the whole shebang. Unfortunately, I cannot.

Because from the moment I stepped into that raid until the moment I teleported out, I was never over 2fps.

…aaaand I frankly have no idea why.

I shut down all my other programs. I tried sans-Vent. I turned all my video effects down to zero (which meant that I could no longer see stuff on the ground). No dice. The second either a.) A boss or b.) more than one trash mob showed up on screen, I was essentially out of commission.

Now I know some of you guys are used to playing with poor computer setups and have learned to compensate for having a downright atrocious FPS, but I’m quite spoiled and I, well… haven’t. So at the end of every boss fight I’d pull up Recount, look at how absolutely horrific my performance was, and beg my guild to let me leave so they could replace me with someone who could actually contribute.

And my guild, bless their hearts, insisted that I come “see the new stuff” so they kept dragging my sorry butt all over the place.

We only did the first wing, for which I was grateful, because by that point I wanted to curl up in the fetal position somewhere and cry. Though, the Saurfang boss wasn’t too bad. Mostly because it was a Patchwerk-esque fight since I had a viable excuse to Not-Shoot-The-Adds (when you’re sitting at SUB-1-FRAME-PER-SECOND, you’re excused from shooting adds, I think.) So I was able to concentrate on my rotation, as much as I could for having, well, SUB-1-FRAME-PER-SECOND.

I gotta hand props to Wash here for picking up the slack. Lucky guy lives in the game world and doesn’t have to worry about this stuff. *mutters*

Needless to say I don’t think 25man ICC is gonna happen for me. It’s something in that dungeon, I’m quite sure, since I did an Ony25 just the other day with absolutely no issues.

Let’s hope 10-man is at least playable…

OH!

I got a new bow.

I haven’t used a bow since Valanos’ Longbow. Dead serious. The bow animation kind of weirds me out…